John Carlson and Jason Osborne SEDAR34-WP-02. Submitted: 6 May 2013 Updated: 8 July 2013

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1 1 Standardized catch rates of bonnetheads from the Everglades National Park Creel Survey John Carlson and Jason Osborne SEDAR34-WP-02 Submitted: 6 May 2013 Updated: 8 July 2013 This information is distributed solely for the purpose of pre-dissemination peer review. It does not represent and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy.

2 2 Please cite this document as: Carlson, J. and J. Osborne Standardized catch rates of bonnetheads from the Everglades National Park Creel Survey. SEDAR34-WP-02. SEDAR, North Charleston, SC. 11 pp.

3 3 Standardized catch rates of bonnetheads from the Everglades National Park Creel Survey John K. Carlson National Marine Fisheries Service, Southeast Fisheries Science Center, 3500 Delwood Beach Rd. Panama City, FL Jason Osborne National Park Service, South Florida Natural Resource Center, State Road Homestead, FL SEDAR34-WP-02

4 4 Abstract Using voluntary dockside interviews of sport fishers collected by the Everglades National Park, a standardized index of abundance was created for bonnethead shark using the delta lognormal method. Data has been collected by ENP personnel since However, the survey expanded it species list in the 1980s to include more than just the "sportfish" species. Therefore, the time series was analyzed from following analysis conducted for blacktip shark at SEDAR 29. Factors year, area, target, season, fisher were significant main effects in the binomial model and factors year and area and were significant main effects in the lognormal model. The relative abundance trend was a gradual decline since about INTRODUCTION The Everglades National Park was established in 1947 and a fisheries monitoring program by the National Park Service based on sport fisher dock-side interviews began in 1972 (Schmidt et al. 2002). Fisheries data provided by the National Park Service may prove to be a useful long-term time series of relative abundance for monitoring the relative abundance of shark populations, although the area of the survey is limited to south Florida. However, because this data is based on information collected from recreational anglers which normally change fishing tactics, standardization to correct for factors unrelated to abundance such as gear changes, timeof-year, and area are necessary. The present study attempts to standardize an index of abundance for bonnethead sharks based on the monitoring of the recreational fishery in the Everglades National Park. MATERIAL AND METHODS Field data collection Recreation sport fishers were interviewed by Everglades National Park personnel at the Flamingo and Chokoloskee-Everglades City boat ramps upon completion of their fishing trip (Figure 1). Data normally recorded includes trip origin, area fished, number of fish kept and released by species, number of anglers, hours fished, species preference, angler residence, and type of fisher (i.e. skilled, family, novice, sustenance) (Figure 2). Further details on the methodology can be found in Davis and Thue (1979), Tilmant et al. (1986), and Schmidt et al. (2002). Index Development Standardized catch rates were modeled for bonnethead sharks. The factors that were expected to influence the catch of sharks were year, fisher, season, and area. For the purposes of analysis, several categorical variables were constructed from the Everglades National Park data set prior to analysis. The factor Fisher refers to the skill level of the fishing party. Based on Cass-Calay and Schmidt (2003), two levels were considered from the data; Skilled = fishers identified as Skilled by Everglades National Park personnel and Other = Fishers identified as family, novice or sustenance. The factor Season was developed from Month to create two periods reflective of rainfall in the Everglades National Park. Those periods are Dry = December-May and Wet = June-November. The factor Area where the fisher reported fishing was refined from the Everglades National Park definitions based on similarity in habitat type (Figure 1). Because of variations in fishing location, depth, bait and gear choice, we believed that many fishing trips that targeted species normally caught had a low probability to capture a

5 5 bonnethead. In the absence of detailed and reliable data regarding specific fishing location, bait choice, etc., we used the association statistic calculated by Carlson et al. (2007) at SEDAR13 to attempt to identify trips with a higher probability of catching bonnetheads and refine the dataset. All trips were excluded unless a trip kept or released a bonnethead, or one of the top three species identified as an associate was kept or released. Indices of abundance were estimated following the Delta method (Lo et al., 1992) by modeling the probability of the non-zero catch assuming a type-3 model with a binomial error distribution and a logit link. The distribution of the positive shark catches was modeled assuming a lognormal distribution. Catch per unit effort= number of bonnethead sharks caught/hours reported fishing*number of anglers. Following Ortiz and Arocha (2004), factors most likely to influence abundance were evaluated in a forward stepwise fashion. Initially, a null model was run with no factors entered into the model. Models were then fit in a stepwise forward manner adding one independent variable. Each factor was ranked from greatest to least reduction in deviance per degree of freedom when compared to the null model. The factor with the greatest reduction in deviance was then incorporated into the model providing the effect was significant at p<0.05 based on a Chi-Square test, and the deviance per degree of freedom was reduced by at least 1% from the less complex model. The process was continued until no factors met the criterion for incorporation into the final model. Regardless of its level of significance, year was kept in all models. This allows the estimation of the annual indices, which is the main objective of the standardization process, but also accounts for the variability associated with year-interactions. After selecting the set of factors for each error distribution, all factors that included the factor year were treated as random interactions (Ortiz and Arocha, 2004). We applied a Generalized Linear Mixed Modeling (GLMM), approach because these models can predict CPUEs for unfished fishing cells based on the estimated effects of the explanatory variables as long as these cells were fished in some of the years. The standardized CPUE values for the Delta models were calculated as the product of the expected probability of a non-zero catch and the expected conditional catch rate for sets that had a non- zero catch. The expected probability and expected conditional catch rate were the least square means of the factor year from each of the two analyses that constitute an analysis using the Delta model approach (Lo et al., 1992; Stefansson, 1996). All models were fit using a SAS macro, GLIMMIX (glmm800maob.sas: Russ Wolfinger, SAS Institute Inc.) and the MIXED procedure in SAS statistical computer software (PROC GLIMMIX). Final models were selected based on Akaike Information Criteria (AIC). Models of positive catches were checked for appropriate fit and diagnostics by examining the residuals plotted against the fitted values to check for systematic departures from the assumptions underlying the error distribution; the absolute values of the residuals plotted against the fitted values as a check of the assumed variance function; and the dependent variable was plotted against the linear predictor function as a check of the assumed link function (McCullagh and Nelder, 1989).

6 6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Data has been collected by ENP personnel since However, the survey expanded it species list in the 1980s to include more than just the "sportfish" species. Therefore, the time series was analyzed from following analysis conducted for blacktip shark at SEDAR 29.Trips were excluded if essential fields were missing, unusable or if a trip did not contain a trip associated with catching a bonnethead shark. The final ENP dataset analyzed contained trips. Of those trips, bonnethead sharks were reported caught on 14.5% of trips. The stepwise construction of the model is summarized in Table 1 and the index statistics can be found in Table 2. Table 3 provides a table of the frequency of observations by factor and level. The standardized abundance index is shown in Figure 3 and the diagnostic plots assessing the fit of the models were deemed acceptable (Figure 4). The length distribution (mm TL) of bonnethead sharks measured overall is shown in Figure 5. Table 1. Analysis of deviance of explanatory variables for the binomial and lognormal generalized linear and mixed model formulations of the proportion of positive and positive catches for bonnethead sharks. Final models selected are in bold. Proportion positive-binomial error distribution FACTOR DEVIANCE/DF %DIFF DELTA% CHISQUARE PR>CHI NULL YEAR <.0001 YEAR+ AREA <.0001 TARGET <.0001 SEASON <.0001 FISHER <.0001 YEAR+AREA+ TARGET <.0001 SEASON <.0001 FISHER <.0001 YEAR+AREA+TARGET+ SEASON <.0001 FISHER <.0001 YEAR+AREA+TARGET+SEASON+ FISHER <.0001 MIXED MODEL AIC YEAR+AREA+TARGET+SEASON+FISHER YEAR+AREA+TARGET+SEASON+FISHER YEAR*AREA YEAR+AREA+TARGET+SEASON+FISHER YEAR*TARGET YEAR+AREA+TARGET+SEASON+FISHER YEAR*SEASON YEAR+AREA+TARGET+SEASON+FISHER YEAR*FISHER Proportion positive-lognormal error distribution FACTOR DEVIANCE/DF %DIFF DELTA% CHISQUARE PR>CHI

7 7 NULL YEAR <.0001 YEAR+ AREA <.0001 TARGET <.0001 SEASON <.0001 FISHER YEAR+AREA+ SEASON <.0001 TARGET MIXED MODEL AIC YEAR+AREA YEAR+AREA YEAR*AREA Table 2. The standardized and nominal index (number of sharks per angler hour) of absolute abundance, and coefficients of variation (CV) for all bonnethead sharks. N=number of interviewed trips. YEAR N ABSOLUTE CV ABSOLUTE CV STANDARDIZED INDEX NOMINAL INDEX

8 8 Table 3. Frequency of observations by factor and level used in the development of the standardized catch rate series. FACTOR LEVEL FREQUENCY OF TOTAL Year Area CS 14.2 IF 10.0 NA 33.9 OF 2.2 TI 33.1 WB 6.7 Season Dry 52.4 Wet 47.6 Target Other 75.0 Shark 0.7 Snapper 1.5 Snook 10.8 Tarpon 1.1 Trout 10.8 Fisher Skilled 45.1 Other 54.9

9 Figure 1. Map of the Everglades National Park illustrating the defined fishing areas and the boat launch ramps where fishers were interviewed. 9

10 Figure 2. From Davis and Thue (1979), questions asked as part of the sportfishers interview by Everglades Parks personnel. 10

11 11 Figure 3. Nominal (obscpue) and standardized (STDCPUE) indices of abundance for bonnethead sharks. The dashed lines are the 95% confidence limits (LCL, UCL) for the standardized index. Each index has been divided by the maximum of the index SEDAR13 Continuity78_11 SEDAR

12 Figure 4. Diagnostic plots of the frequency distribution of residuals, quantile-quantile plots, and distribution of residuals by year. 12

13 13 Figure 5. Length frequency distribution of bonnethead sharks caught in the Everglades National Park Count Total length (mm) LITERATURE CITED Carlson, J.K., J. Osborne, and T. Schmidt Standardized catch rates of bonnetheads from the Everglades National Park Creel Survey, SEDAR 13-DW-10. Cass-Calay, S. L. and T. Schmidt Standardized catch rates of juvenile Goliath Grouper from the Everglades National Park Creel Survey, Sustainable Fisheries Division Contribution SFD Southeast Fisheries Science Center, 75 Virginia Beach Drive, Miami, Florida Davis, G. E. and E. B. Thue Fishery data management handbook. Rept. T-546. Everglades National Park, SFRC, P. O. Box 279, Homestead, FL Higman, H. B Relationships between catch rates of sport fish and environmental conditions in Everglades National Park, Florida. Proc. Gulf Carib. Fish. Inst. 19: Lo, N.C., L.D. Jackson, J.L. Squire Indices of relative abundance from fish spotter data based on delta-lognormal models. Schmidt, T. W., J. Osborne, J. Kalafarski, and C. Greene Year 2001 annual fisheries report, Everglades National Park. USNPS/ SFNRC/ENP, State Road 9336, Homestead, FL (Online Tilmant, J. T., E. S. Rutherford, R. H. Dawson, and E. B. Thue Impacts of gamefish harvest in Everglades National Park. Pro. Conf. Sci. in Nat'l Parks. pp